The History of the Confederate War, Its Causes and Its Conduct, Volume 2 (of 2) / A Narrative and Critical History

by George Cary Eggleston

Fortunately, he had for his coadjutor one of the most enterprising and most daring men who ever commanded a ship. David D. Porter, in his personal character, was typical of that all-unfaltering courage which the officers of the American navy have always exacted of each other and of themselves as the measure of a man. Porter was ready for anything. Cool-headed, skilled in navigation, resolute, and thoroughly familiar with the problems of the Mississippi, he responded instantly and eagerly to Grant's demand that he should run his fleet past the Vicksburg batteries at any and every hazard and place it in a position below, where the gunboats might serve as transports to the troops if Grant could manage to get the troops there.

This thing was splendidly done, and perhaps nothing more picturesque or dramatic occurred during the war. Porter chose the night, of course, for his attempt, but the Confederates on the shore had long anticipated some such enterprise and had prepared themselves to overcome the difference between night and day. They had collected great piles of lumber on the banks; they had filled many houses with combustibles, and to all these they instantly set fire when it was known that the fleet was endeavoring to pass the batteries. The river and the entire landscape were rendered lurid by the flames. The men behind the guns on shore were enabled to deliver their fire as accurately as if the sun had been shining. The fleet, in the meanwhile, replied to every shot as it steadily steamed by, and in spite of the hellish appearances the losses on either side were trifling.

In the meanwhile Grant had moved on the western side of the Mississippi, from Milliken's Bend to a point opposite Grand Gulf. There he found the Confederates strongly fortified, but by moving down the river to Bruinsburg he succeeded in getting his army across on the thirtieth of April.

If the reader will now look at a map, remembering that Vicksburg and Port Hudson were both held by the Confederates, and that the regions along the river bank on the western side of the stream were quagmires, traversed at every step by impassable streams and bayous, he will have some conception of the boldness of this movement of Grant's. The great fighter had deliberately carried his army into a position where he had no possibility of communication with any base of supplies in either direction. He had cut himself off from all help and must henceforth rely exclusively upon himself. He had put himself in a position where victory was the only alternative to destruction. During all the course of the war no other general on either side ventured upon so desperate a risk as this.

Having marched over difficult roads, and by circuitous routes, Grant had brought with him, of course, supplies of food and ammunition sufficient only for a very brief campaign. For further food than this he must depend upon a country by no means rich in supplies at any time, which had already been stripped nearly bare by the requisitions of his adversary. For ammunition, beyond the store that he had in his caissons and cartridge boxes, he had no supply-source at all. To employ the old metaphor of war history, he had completely burned his ships and his bridges behind him. But at least and at last he had succeeded in placing himself in a position from which he could operate in the rear of Vicksburg.

The Confederate general, Joseph E. Johnston—just recovered from the well-nigh mortal wound he had received at Seven Pines—had been sent to Jackson, Mississippi, less than fifty miles east of Vicksburg to take command of such forces as could be gathered there. He had in fact collected a considerable body of men whose numbers Grant could in no wise ascertain. Nevertheless, Grant determined to push his own army into a perilous position between that of Johnston at Jackson, and that of Pemberton near Vicksburg. He was aided in this by a great cavalry raid which had recently been made by Grierson from the north which swept through the Mississippi country, desolating it and occupying the attention of the Confederates in many quarters from which, but for this diversion, Johnston might easily have drawn reinforcements.

During the next two months the battling was well-nigh incessant, and the losses on both sides, though incurred in comparatively small engagements, amounted in the aggregate to those of a great contest. One considerable battle occurred on the fifteenth of May at Champion Hills. Having captured the city of Jackson and destroyed there everything that could aid the Confederates in their struggle, Grant had turned westward in a direct march toward Vicksburg. At Champion Hills he encountered Pemberton, who had taken up a strong position on high ground and who desperately resisted the Federal advance. After four hours of such fighting as only veterans could have done or stood, Pemberton retreated, leaving his dead, his wounded and thirty guns on the field. The losses on either side were between twenty-five hundred and three thousand men. Yet this battle of Champion Hills is scarcely known by name to the millions of youths who every year pass their examinations in American history. A smaller but still considerable battle was fought on the Big Black river on the seventeenth, resulting in a loss of eighteen guns and two thousand men to the Confederates.

From that point Pemberton retired to Vicksburg and Grant following, closely besieged that city. In the meanwhile his operations had been so far successful that he was now in command of a point on the Yazoo where he established a secure base of supplies.

In apprehension of an attack from Johnston in the rear, Grant made a tremendous effort on the twenty-second to carry the Vicksburg works by storm, but was beaten off with losses so heavy that he determined to settle down into regular siege operations.

During the period of this siege the situation in Vicksburg was appalling in an extreme degree. The Federal guns were near enough to pour a continuous stream of shells into the town, and they did so without pause, night or day. The inhabitants, including women and children, were ceaselessly under a fire that might well have staggered the courage even of veteran soldiers. No house in the town was for one moment a safe dwelling place, and for refuge the people dug caves in the cliffs and harbored there unwholesomely. In the meanwhile they were suffering under progressive starvation. The food supplies were daily dwindling, yet with splendid courage those who were beleaguered in the city maintained their cheerfulness to the end, as is testified by files of that daily journal printed upon the back of wall paper which appeared at its appointed time every day and in spite of all, until the end.